Anne Penketh

Anne Penketh is a freelance journalist and columnist based in Paris. She was posted to Moscow, Paris and New York for AFP news agency before joining The Independent, where she was Diplomatic Editor until 2009.

The whistleblower behind a series ofleaks that revealed the United States was spying on its allies has applied forpolitical asylum in Russia, it has emerged, as the French President FrançoisHollande threatened to call off EU negotiations on a major trade deal unlessthe snooping stopped.

Edward Snowden,
who is believed to have been in the transit area of a Moscow airport since last
week, handed in his application for asylum to the Russian consulate via a
WikiLeaks activist he was travelling with, a Russian immigration official told
Reuters.

The news came shortly after Russian
President Vladimir Putin had played down the idea that Mr Snowden may stay in Russia. Commenting on the
reports that Mr Snowden, a National
Security Agency contractor, had sought asylum in Moscow, Mr Putin said he would
have to stop leaking first. "He should stop his work aimed at inflicting
damage on our American partners," he said. But Mr Snowden was free to leave for asylum
elsewhere, he explained. He added: "Russia never gives up anyone to
anybody, and is not planning to. And nobody ever gave anyone up to us."

Meanwhile President Hollande has
raised the stakes in the bugging row by leading a chorus of protests from
France following revelations that its UN mission, and Washington embassy, had
been bugged by US intelligence. He called for "guarantees" from the
US that the bugging of its allies' premises had stopped and demanded that
spying "stop immediately".

"We cannot accept this
kind of behaviour between partners and allies," he said. "No
negotiations or transactions can be held in all areas until we have these
guarantees [that the eavesdropping will stop]," he said.

"That goes for France and for the
whole of the European Union, and for all America's partners." The EU-US
negotiations on the largest-ever free trade pact start in Washington on Monday.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel's
spokesman issued a harsh reaction, describing the covert operations as worthy
of the Cold War. "Eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable," he said.

President Barack Obama, described by
one French leader-writer as "worse than the two Bushes put together",
said yesterday that Washington would provide all the information the Europeans
are seeking on the surveillance programme.

President Obama said he has held
"high-level" discussions with Russia to get Snowden out of a Moscow airport and back to
the US.

Mr Snowden
is reported to have applied for asylum in 15 countries, including Ecuador.
Relations between its government in Quito and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
are becoming "incredibly strained" over his part in attempts to give
the whistle-blower refuge, The Independent has learnt.

The tensions, confirmed by a Quito
source, could bring into question Mr Assange's position in the South American
nation's London embassy if they remain unresolved - more than a year after he
claimed asylum there in order to avoid extradition to Sweden, only to be
prevented from leaving by British police. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa is
said to have been angered by WikiLeaks' part in Mr Snowden
receiving a letter guaranteeing him safe passage.